u/CrematoryHutJr666

I know this is long but after 6+ years of thorough dream journaling and lucid dreaming I’d really like to ask the people of Reddit their experience, advice and opinions.

The last year or two I fell off on my journaling consistency, I feel exhausted from the state of the world and wanted to just rest. Though the dreaming is really important and positive in its impact within my life, the amount of dreams which are often bleak, violent, or existential in ways that distress me is taking a toll. I also feel ashamed of a lot of the content in the journals which reflect stereotypes and other characteristics which I don’t identify or side with in waking life. While I know that my dream self is not my consciously awake self, my dream journal is inadvertently a product or representation of me (and the world around me) and that stresses me out.

• Ik that dreaming is much more than exclusively the journal, however the journal is the extensive physical record of this dreaming endeavor, and the fact that i have put years into something and the writing sucks and may not properly represent the dreams themselves and beliefs of my own self is getting to me.

I’m struggling to find that inner drive and passion for maintaining the journal at any high quality and conducting reality checks etc. However, I feel really precious about the years of time, energy, growth, and sacrifice that have been put into my dreaming and I worry that I am throwing it all away by not keeping it up.

Has anyone else kept a dream journal for a long time and have reached a wall/exhaustion with it? Or a judgement or embarrassment of it. Or maybe you have taken long break(s). How have you approached this long term dreaming and active journaling, does it come and go in phases for you? How has it been over the years? What do you feel about any of this?

Thank you for your time!